This post is starting off squarely in the rant column, I’ll admit it. I will also admit to being a long time (looooong time) Chargers season ticket holder. How long? Since the Chargers were in the AFL, pre-merger, pre-NFL. My season ticket holder priority number was three digits and nearly guaranteed seats to every playoff game or Super Bowl (if and when the team actually made it into the post season). I cancelled our seats, which were on the 50 yard line, Gold Club level in the shade of the press level overhang. Cherry seats. I cancelled them because I saw Spanos spending more energy on raising the price of beer and food, of parking, of tickets, of any and everything while investing little on coaching or player talent. To me it appeared he was the NFL team owners version of a slum lord and I got tired of paying for his racket.

That is the thread of this post, the rant leads to this simple concept. Pro sports, specifically the NFL, is a racket. It is a racket that can be broken down to a few simple concepts: Privatize the profits and socialize the risks. Other people’s money and how to use it. You get the gist.

Privatize the profits, socialize the risks

The Spanos family, like nearly all NFL team owners, are billionaires. Billionaires are billionaires to some degree because they know how to use other people’s money rather than their own to get things done. Look at what Alex Spanos managed to finagle out of Susan Golding when she was the Mayor of San Diego. That ticket guarantee and expansion of Jack Murphy stadium (and the city employee pension shenanigans surrounding the 1996 Republican National Convention) are still causing the city financial headaches.

Now in 2015 we are looking at more of the same horseshit, the billionaire owner of a team in a trillion dollar league is looking to the taxpayers to essentially build them a new place of business. When was the last time the city built Qualcomm a new factory?

Forget the fact that we have a topsy-turvy underfunded pension system, that we have so many potholes that its like driving on the Moon, that our sewage treatment system is going on several years of federal fines for being outside of federal guidelines. I am sure you can think up several more to-dos that the city needs to pay for. But no, a new stadium is an imperative. Bizarre logic.

Why do the Chargers want a new stadium? I will admit that Qualcomm (the Muprh) is getting a bit long in the tooth. The Chargers should leave the stadium and it should be imploded, jackhammered and carted off. It served us well. But is that the only reason? Not by a long shot. If you look at all of the newly built NFL stadiums you’ll see a common theme. Lots and lots of luxury box suites and corporate suites. Lots of them. Guess what? Revenue from stadium luxury boxes is not subject to the NFL’s profit sharing system. Meaning that the owners get to keep 100% of the proceeds from luxury box ticket sales. Why do you think the owners, like Spanos, want a new stadium? The kicker is they want you to pay for it. You can’t find an offer this skeevie on a late-late night TV advertisement on a shitty third tier cable station.

Where in the hell do I sign up for this program? Seriously, if you take a step back and look at it this is almost as shameless a deal as a hyped up Bible belt televangelist selling salvation to octogenarians. Except in this case the octogenarians are face-painting football fans and uninformed voters. Spend over a billion dollars in taxpayer money that is desperately needed elsewhere to build a stadium so you can pay $50 for parking and $100 for a ticket to go in and spend $9 a beer and $8 for a shitty hot dog. Talk about grabbing your ankles and preparing to Bolt Up. I want in on this scam. San Diego taxpayers will spend $2 billion to build me a giant pyramid with an alter so I can sell them emptiness. (yeah, that’s a Conan the Barbarian reference)

But what about the revenue and the jobs?

I keep hearing about the jobs engine and revenue engine a new stadium will be. Especially from that shill Sully Sullivan on KOGO. If a new stadium will be such a boost to jobs and the local economy why isn’t our current stadium already that same engine? Why? Because it isn’t and a new one wouldn’t be either. It is empty bullshit, hollow rhetoric to influence public opinion. That or a new stadium will be a jobs and revenue engine because we’ll get another Super Bowl and other big events. So the logic is that we’ll hang greater than $1 billion in public debt on the chance we might get another Super Bowl? Of course behind all the other cities that just ponied up >$1B to built new stadiums. Of course there isn’t just football. There are concerts. Seriously, how many musical acts are touring anymore that can fill a 75,000 seat stadium? I don’t even think the Stones or U2 could sell out a 75,000 seat stadium anymore and even if they could how often does that happen? It doesn’t. So what, monster trucks? We’ll rely on a Super Bowl every 8-10 years, the Stones reunion reunion farewell tour and some monster truck pulls to justify blowing more than $1 billion on a new stadium? Seriously, did someone leave the valve open on a huge canister of nitrous oxide somewhere in the city? Was pot legalized for recreational use and I missed the press release? If there is a legal test for criminalizing stupidity a taxpayer funded stadium is it.

But the jobs…

Yeah, the jobs. Eight NFL games per year. Single day events. Concessions workers, ticket takers, security guards, parking attendants and all part time and well under the hours for health insurance. No disrespect to any of the hardworking people in these jobs now but these are shit jobs. I mean they are jobs and I respect those who work hard in them and make what they can but these are not the types of jobs taxpayers should be investing to create. If creating jobs is the goal lets float a $750 million dollar bond backed by the taxpayers and combine the $750 million along with the land at Qualcomm stadium and offer it to Elon Musk to built a Tesla factory in San Diego. You know, high paid full-time skilled jobs. Career jobs. Full-time, 40 hour per week high-tech innovation jobs. Not someone that warms hot dogs eight Sundays per year.

This bond is burning a hole in my pocket

Like a kid with five bucks in their pocket at a Disneyland gift shop the politicos in San Diego are attached to the idea of putting a bond on the ballot to do something splashy, something they can point to or take photo ops in front of. A stadium, a waterfront ferris wheel, a skyride or zip line from Balboa Park to downtown, a sky spire. How about city-wide beer plumbing from all of the craft breweries to our homes. An extra faucet at the sink. Grapefruit Sculpin out of my sink faucet. Why not? If we’re willing to entertain a billion dollar stadium for an owner and league that could afford it themselves why not city-wide beer plumbing? I bet it would get better election numbers than a stadium.

Convadium®

The nice folks over at Voice of San Diego coined the term Convadium® and I like to give them credit. It was the idea that a new downtown convention center could be combined with a new NFL stadium thereby giving the Chargers and NFL what they want by piggybacking on a convention center expansion that has the backing of a lot of smart and influential people. A convention center is a wise investment if we absolutely need to blow lots of taxpayer dollars we can’t really afford. I’ll get more into why I think it’s a good idea in a minute. The combined Convadium idea is awful. Large convention planners want a single, large contiguous space so convention goers don’t have to walk or navigate shuttle routes to move between convention space locations. Trust me on this, I’ve been doing big conventions for 23 years. The only convention center expansion that makes any sense is expanding the existing convention center downtown by building into/over the waterfront. No Convadium, no football. Just a convention center. Actually we don’t have to worry about the Convadium® or any downtown stadium project anymore because San Diego MTS announced this week that the downtown bus yard would take years to cleanup and relocate the buses and equipment…and clean up the ground from leaking diesel tanks. This makes me chuckle because I know of a new real estate and land people who have been quietly speculating on an east village NFL stadium and now the buildings they’ve been holding on to just dropped in value. Wha-wha-wha-wha..

So a convention center and not a stadium?

Yes, exactly. Here are some comparisons between stadiums and convention centers.

Stadium events are mostly on weekends. Conventions are mostly on weekdays. Five days of operation per week compared to one or two.
Stadium events draw mostly local or area residents. Convention events draw mostly out of town visitors. Locality of money.
Stadium would have eight NFL games per year. A convention center can have a convention 52 weeks per year.

Those are just a few examples of how stadiums and convention centers are different. Locality of money is a big one. It is a concept I made up in my own head and I am sure there is a more official economist term for the same concept (feel free to enlighten me). The real battleground for success of a city or state is locality of money. You don’t benefit from the same local money spinning around from buyer to seller to government and back to citizen. A region benefits much more from pulling remote money into the local economy and capturing it, thereby increasing the local money supply. Concepts like buying local, Mom & Pop retailers help this by not giving what money our region has to large corporate entities that transfer our money away from the area. An active and successful convention center is a money locality engine, a magnet that draws in money from remote places through attendee travel, hotel, restaurant, entertainment and other direct spending. Where a stadium asserts that we’ll eventually get a Super Bowl with all of the money it brings in, a bigger/better convention center can do that 4-5 times a year, every year. Convention attendees by in large are traveling on business expense budgets which means more spending. A week of hotel room, meals, entertainment, shopping for those obligatory business trip gift for the kid or wife (secretary, girlfriend, mistress, etc).

The consistent financial benefit to the city from having an expanded convention center is obvious. Comic-Con is a big, shiny example. Imagine getting the Consumer Electronics Show, National Association of Builders, National Homebuilders, or any other 50,000-100,000 attendee convention? Imagine one of those, a week long each, 5 times per year or more? That is revenue and jobs. At the convention center, the city’s hotels, the restaurants, transportation, retail, airport. That is real and consistent impact. A stadium, not so much.

We really need to be spending taxpayer money on potholes, sidewalks and infrastructure.

If we must invest in some large project then it’s simple math:  convention center > stadium.

Here is the original story posted on Fark

That day was July 21st, 1989. At the time I was a Marine Corps Lance Corporal stationed at the Marine Corps base at Twentynine Palms, CA. I had to drive to Albuquerque, NM and when I looked at the map it seemed much quicker to cut across Wonder Valley and through Amboy to I-40 rather than go down to Palm Springs, across and up the 15 to Barstow to pick up I-40. Being a Marine I naturally went for the shortest distance, score one for being efficient.

When I first arrived to the Twentynine Palms base they gathered the new arrivals into a room and gave us the talk. Don’t fuck up. Don’t do this or that. Stay out of this biker bar in town. Stay away from the drugged out desert chicks. Basic stay out of trouble stuff. They also told us to stay out of Amboy, not to even venture in that direction. My first thought was “wait, we’re Marines, we’re invincible”. Yeah, I was green and still drunk on the Kool-Aid. They told us scary stories about people being killed, found dead along the road, going missing, etc. They even told of us nighttime torchlight precessions that had been seen my some Marine units practicing night operations near the border of the base closest to the valley where Amboy was located. Devil worshipers, crazies, etc.

As I planned my trip to Albuquerque all of this was going through my mind and I thought “fuck it, who would know”? Plus I would be the middle of the day, nothing bad happens in the middle of the day. Yeah, so much for that theory as the trip would later prove. So I planned to take the Amboy route. On the day of my drive I thought I would bring my pistol, a Ruger P-85 9mm and a full magazine just in case. When I came across the ambush later that day it was all very surreal and everything moved kind of fast. I do remember thinking about the pistol and then realizing it wasn’t enough. When everything unfolded I remembered realizing that 14 rounds, even if I didn’t miss once, was not enough. There were that many people that popped out onto the road. That day I was lucky. I didn’t befall whatever plan those lunatics had that day. The whole thing moved fast and yet it seemed like forever that I was sitting there idling in the car, looking at the bodies and the Fiero and thinking W.T.F?!? Driving past the bodies felt like slow motion even though I was moving quick in first gear and by the time I passed the Fiero and looked in the mirror and saw the 20 or so people stepping out on to the road I hauled ass to I-40 so fast that I’m surprised I didn’t overshoot the onramp.

So now it is Halloween, 2013. I’ve been somewhat curious to go back and see the place after 24 years. To find the spot where it happened. Last weekend I packed my jeep with water, jerky, cigars, a handgun, rifle and lots of ammunition and decided to drive back and see it again. I didn’t really think those lunatics were still hiding in the bushes but I didn’t think they’d be there the first time and I wasn’t going to get caught unprepared again. That isn’t a feeling you want to experience twice.

That feeling, the whole premise behind the “scary story” concept. This story was scary to me not just because it happened but because it didn’t require any belief in the supernatural. Ghost stories, demons, vampires and all of that isn’t as scary to me as broken human beings. Real people who for some reason step outside of the social agreement we all have and behave in shocking, unthinkable ways. I estimated there were 20-25 people between the two laying in the road and the ones that jumped out behind my car. That was 20-25 people who all agreed to do something really fucked up to someone, to me. I doubt they were going to sing the Coca-Cola Christmas teach the world to sing song or try and sell me girl scout cookies. To this day I wonder what they had planned. What if I had gotten out of the car? There was a woman laying in the road and it was possible that my inner Marine superman-complex would have kicked in and gotten out of the car to check on the unfortunate civilians in need of help. And then what? Tortured? Chopped up into bits? And what is even weirder to imagine is that unless unknown to me God or Cthulhu or Buddy Jesus decided to smite them those 20-25 people are still walking around somewhere doing something. No two ways about it, people are freakin’ scary. Scarier than ghost stories or sparkle fairy vampires or little green men in spaceships.

So 24 years later I drove from San Diego, CA to Amboy, CA and visited the spot where the story took place 24 years ago. I’m older and scruffier than I was back then. I was also more on guard this time, not to mention better armed. I could’ve held out for 3-4 days in a World War Z movie scenario this time.

Me at the Route 66 / Kelbaker Road sign.

At the ambush spot. Approx 1/3rd the distance between Route 66 and I-40 on Kelbaker Road.

This is a Google Maps zoom of the spot. It is northbound on Kelbaker. The ambush was just past the rock formation on the left, closest to the roadside.

Ambush scene. Red marks the path I drove to get past the two people laying in the road and the red Fiero. Pardon my lack of Photoshop skills, I am no Yammering Splat Vector.

I didn’t photoshop in the scattered clothing on the road and the suitcase. Like I said, I’m no Yammering Splat Vector and this is about as good as I get in PS.

The high desert can be a freaky place. It is beautiful and fun to play in but it has its own kind of weird.

Speaking of weird, while on this trip I stumbled upon something a little odd. Two white marble 6ft tall Chinese Foo Dog statues standing 100 yards apart in the middle.of.nowhere. Out front of Mann’s Chinese Theatre or a restaurant sure but in the middle of no place? With nothing else around? The tinfoil part of me decided that this is where the Chinese Army plans to setup a forward operating base when they get tired of our financial bullshit and invade America. What ever these foo dog guardian lion statues are doing there is a mystery and may become another story.

Two Chinese guardian lion “Fu Dog” statues in the middle of nowhere, near Amboy, CA. (one shown)

Thank you for reading. If I can offer one small bit of advice, listen to your gut or inner voice. Have a healthy amount of skepticism and keep a little bit of your guard up. If I hadn’t that day I may not be alive today.

Love, peace and chicken grease….. Happy Halloween

World Bank whistleblower – ‘Congress all bribed’

The US government shutdown – a temporary ailment or a symptom of a grave disease? Are the Republicans right in their move to block Obamacare spending? Who gains from the shutdown turmoil? Do the politicians care about their citizens? Our guest comes from the very heart of the banking system: Karen Hudes was World Bank lawyer when she blew the whistle on major corruption cases in the system and was fired as a result.

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Sophie Shevardnadze: Our guest today is whistleblower Karen Hudes, former senior counsel at the World Bank. Karen, it’s great to have you on a show today.

Karen Hudes: Thanks for having me. Sophie, I’m glad to be with you.

Today I am Philadelphia and attending a conference. Our professional speaker was Major General Vincent Boles.

His website:  http://www.vinnyboles.com

He gave a great speech. Concise, clear and as you might expect from a military General, blunt at times. The speech covered various aspects of leadership and how application of leadership can be simplified. One point he made in the speech was consideration of how you are viewed by people in your life, your family, friends, coworkers, subordinates, etc. The story behind the concept was about a member of the clergy officiating over a funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. The clergyman (unknown if pastor, priest, etc) did not know the deceased veteran or his family. He leaned in to the widow and asked “What three words best describe your husband?”

Three words? This man had been in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Had a family, children, grandchildren. Boil down a life like that down to three words.

It is a provocative concept and it got me to thinking. I think I might create a website or an email survey and ask a long list of people I know, even those who might not like me too much, to give me three words. I think it would be interesting.

It would be interesting to get that feedback while I can change how I impact those around me. Plus, many people in my life are comedians so it could end up being more like a Friar’s Roast.

Me? I was awakened by a phone call from a close friend in the NYC area. I answered and she said to turn on the TV. I asked what channel. She replied “any”. Few things spoken to me in my life ever had any truly lasting impact. Certainly nothing as much as that three letter word spoken that morning.

Some people say “never forget”. That three letter word and everything that came with it is like a railroad spike driven into my skull. Never forget? Who could?

Positive energy from me to all of you.

The Cliff Notes

Here is a brief summary, the speed dating version of this post:

Do I have your attention? If so, continue reading.

First, lets cut the bullshit

Like every political hot potato, the immigration debate is chock full o’ bullshit. Redefinitions, flowery language, fluff and circumstance. To truly fix a problem it must be well defined. Defining a problem requires removing the superfluous crap. So lets pressure wash the problem a little:

People currently living in the United States without proper entry granted through legit border entry points are Illegal Aliens. Period. Their illegal entry is a violation of our laws. Border laws are accepted practice globally and illegal border crossing is really not tolerated anywhere. America should not feel guilty or ashamed to enforce its laws. The Illegal Aliens  here are here illegally and they are breaking the law. They are lovable and valuable by in large but they have still broken our laws. No fancy redefinitions, no softened language. It is what it is, a violation of U.S. law.

True immigration reform will never happen because the Illegal Aliens are valuable commodities to both sides of the political power struggle in Washington DC. The result of the political tug-of-war is that the problem never really gets fixed. The two sides just jockey for a way to maximize the benefit of the problem to them.

The Republicans  and their donor supporter base values the Illegal Aliens as a cheap labor pool. Reduce business/labor costs, increase profits.

The Democrats want to turn all of the Illegal Aliens into rank and file union members, voters and citizens once they get here. They want to bolster their voter base.

There is a sub-economy of predatory business activities preying upon the Illegal Alien community. Financial organizations like banks and money wire companies prey upon the Illegals trying to get money home to their families at high percentage rates. Landlords take advantage of Illegal Aliens because they know they will not go to the authorities. Same goes for the criminal organizations that deal in drugs, trafficking of people across the border, kidnapping, forced prostitution, theft, etc.

If you take a step back and look at the situation you can see that Immigration is never truly fixed because there is too much to benefit from the problem. Too much money to be made.

Establishment, I double-dog dare you to do this

I’m going to describe how I think the Immigration Reform issue could be fixed once and for all. I’m putting it here online so I don’t have to think about it anymore. The powers that be will never do it because it tears down all of the opportunities to take advantage of these people from Mexico. Yes, I referred to them as people from Mexico because first and foremost they are human beings. Yes they are Illegal Aliens by legal definition but they are people first and in most cases they are hard-working, good hearted people that just want to work hard and provide a better life for their families that are usually back in Mexico while they are here working their asses off. That is something that should be admired, not vilified.

My plan will do the following:

1. Remove a large part of the existing illegal population from the United States
   (and allow them right back in legally..)
2. Sharply reduce illegal cross border activity to only the most serious illegal activities
3. Protect the humanity and safety of the Mexicans coming here to work
4. Decimate the criminal and predatory businesses/activities that prey upon Illegal Aliens today
5. Allow them to live out in the open, legally so they can buy, sell, rent, interact with law enforcement/govt without fear of arrest or abuse
6. Take away the political pawn value from the Right and Left.

Tall order right? Not really, it is pretty simple.

Establish a legitimate Migrant Guest Worker status

They want to be migrant workers, lets label them as such. Create a US Government issued biometric ID card with legal status, similar to a Green Card, that allows the card holder to move freely across the border through legitimate border crossings. Configure the Guest Worker status to allow a six to nine month stay, any contiguous six to nine months, in the US with the ability to come and go for reasons like holidays, family issues, etc.

As a part of the Guest Worker status comes employment laws. A minimum wage below the standard US minimum wage but not much below. Set it so they can make a living and more importantly so they cannot be abused by big business interests. If they are legally here then they have rights and that includes a set minimum wage. $4/hour? $5/hour? Economists can argue that. That makes it attractive to big business/big agro but keeps them from being abused by those same entities by paying sweat shop or near indentured servant pay levels. Set a mandatory tax withholding for the services they may draw while in the country. Set those withholdings at a lower rate with little to no Social Security withholding. They won’t be on a path to citizenship so they won’t draw Social Security. No reason to make them pay for it. If they apply for citizenship and are granted then they can pay into Social Security.

Wouldn’t it be nice to actually know who is here in our country? To be able to allow decent people entry and keep out the criminal elements?

Seal the borders tight and tell them all to go home

It all sounded too good right? Now I have exposed myself as a bigot, right? Wrong. Seal the borders so no illegal activity can cross the borders. Instead of amnesty, tell everyone to go back across the border and get the Migrant Guest Worker card. Anyone who goes back willingly will get a card within a week or two of going back. If we can give $8 Trillion Dollars to Wall Street banks in a week we can sign-up, review and create ID cards for a few million workers in one to two weeks. Anyone who does not go back and is ever caught will be deported and never allowed to return for any reason. No amnesty, no Guest Worker card, nothing. No exceptions.

With a legitimate guest worker ID card program and the ability for these people to enter through the front door the only movement across our southern border will be illegal. Our Border Patrol and Homeland Security assets will be able to focus on illegal activity because that is all that there will be on the border. Not migrant workers anymore. Just drugs or more serious threats coming across the border. The ratio for the Border Patrol is so much better. Instead of drugs, terrorism or other serious threats hiding amongst many migrant crossings the real bad guys won’t be able to benefit from the numbers of migrants and the obscurity provided by their movements.

No more coyotes victimizing people. No high speed chases where people die while the coyote tries to evade the authorities. No deaths from hot desert treks or being unsafely packed into smuggling vehicles.

I believe if people were told that if they left voluntarily that they would be given legal ability to work and no longer deal with the pains of illegal existence a large percentage would leave and return.

Full Disclosure: I really like Mexico, Mexicans and Mexican culture

I have spent time in Mexico, far down in Mexico. I’ve enjoyed meals in private homes in small towns. I’ve watched a horse drawn carriage parade a girl around the Zócalo of her town on the way to the church for her Quinceañera. I have hung out with the Mexican Marines that took down part of the Arellano Félix cartel. Even the Mexican Marines in the Presidential Detail in Distrito Federal. I have spoken to several people who sneak into the United States from Mexico to work and go though all sorts of headache trying to communicate with family back home. Sending money back home can be an expensive deal. If they have medical issues or wish to see their family they have to weigh the agony of having to sneak back into the United States via a dangerous desert trek or paying a coyote. All of this can be avoided.

Implement a program like this where these people cannot be politically, financially or criminally exploited.

This is a situation where Mexicans and Americans can both win and the political machinery of the Republicans and Democrats can both lose a little. That is a win-win if I have ever seen one.

Big Brother is watching you

In a clear violation of the Constitution the NSA is watching everything we type and listening to everything we say. Poor them. Reading Twitter and Facebook postings is enough to make you want to off yourself.  They are probably watching me type this in real-time. Sorry guys, I’ll try to be witty and engaging so you don’t nod off. So Big Brother is watching me. So what? There in lies part of my quandary. I’m boring. So what if they know I eat Cherrios for breakfast, like local craft beer, eat bacon more often than my doctor would prefer or enjoy watching Archer? Are any of us really that big of a deal? Are our daily mundane comings and goings so vital to our sense of self that we’re willing to make it difficult for the NSA to try and filter, identify and target really bad people planning really bad things? I ask myself if I want this kind of intrusion and of course I do not, but, if I ask myself if I want this kind of intrusion and by having it something like the Boston Marathon attack gets stopped? Harder to answer. Thinking of those people I am more likely to let the NSA watch me eat Cherrios through my kitchen window.

What happens in Vegas stays in our Utah datacenter

The NSA just finished building a new data center located in rural Utah that can store bazillions of zettabytes of data. Basically the closest thing to a bottomless pit of data. The only thing that can hold more data is the ground prong on the wall outlet. (only nerds will find this mildly amusing. `cat /the/internet > /dev/null`). With all of that computing power, network taps and storage capability the reality is that they are going to be storing tons of crap. Just the inane social media traffic about the Karashians will probably cost taxpayers millions in those resources. They will have every dumb thing said in an email, tweet, FB post, download, fax, SMS text message, etc, including this article. It is storing and sifting through the largest stack of junk mail ever imagined. Needle in a haystack.

The A-Team

The NSA is running PRISM and cataloging all of this data traffic looking for the next evil doer. In my mind I like to think there is a crack team of uber-professionals with mad skills running this tech marvel of a program. The bothersome reality is that while there are definitely some hardcore uber-nerds and patriots operating this thing there is a high likelihood that there are also myopic, cloistered bureaucratic nimrods mixed in there as well. Even worse, at some point on the food chain there are political animals and appointees. People with agendas that have agendas. People who were the class tattletale in grade school, ate lunch alone and plucked the wings from bees and butterflies. Those are the people I am afraid of. Remember Niedermeyer from Animal House? He is in the org chart somewhere. Once upon a time, long long ago I was a Marine Sergeant. When I look at the PRISM business and think about my time in the Marine Corps I would have trusted it to the group of Staff NCOs, Sergeants, Corporals and Lance Coolies that I worked with. Wouldn’t have given it a second thought. But those are Marines, my Marines. Then again, there was that time we listened to cell phone conversations on the nearby interstate and all laughed while listening to some business droid have phone sex with this secretary. Okay, maybe this PRISM thing is a Pandora’s Box. I have to consider the remote possibility that someone, sometime would take some data gleaned by PRISM and burn someone with it for personal or ideological gain. People suck. It just happens.

The world of the red pill

In the Matrix Neo is given the choice to swallow the red pill or blue pill. The blue pill allowed him to remain in the neat little illusion world while the red pill allowed him to view reality. I travel a lot for business, some outside the country. I think Americans can be generally classified as blue pill or red pill people. I think it is easier for the sheltered blue pill people to get all up in arms over PRISM and their privacy. Those of us who step outside of the theme park that is America see just how evil and scary the world can be. Especially in not nice parts of the world. The NSA is keeping that ugly red pill reality out of the blue pill American theme park. Most of the bad people that don’t like us live in parts of the world where human life means little to nothing, most ends justify any means and ideology will effortlessly propel people to horrific acts. I can’t remember the last time I saw a door-to-door salvation merchant like Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons blow something up or kill someone. America really is a wonderful theme park. Out in the rest of the world it can be really ugly.

Our Constitution

America is the awesome theme park that it is because of this one document and our adherence to it. Many have wanted the convenience and expediency of ignoring an amendment here and there. Unfortunately that doesn’t work. We have to embrace all of it or none of it. We can’t cherry pick the stuff we like. Winds change. The group in power today may not be the group in power tomorrow. We might not like it very much when they get their turn to cherry pick the Constitution. The founding fathers couldn’t have imagined something like PRISM. Heck, in those days PRISM would’ve been seen as witchcraft. Maybe it still is. They gave us these amazing rights that people in many other places in the world don’t have. We let the Fourth Amendment go for PRISM. What is next? The First? Second? Fifth? Fifteenth? Nineteenth? Gets slippery doesn’t it? We let the Fourth Amendment slide on PRISM and someone else comes along, a new administration, and they cite our letting the Fourth Amendment slide as precedence for shit-canning the First Amendment. At that point we are China or Russia. Something to think about. It is easy to be outraged when your favorite Amendment is getting trampled. We need to voice the same outrage when the other groups’ favorite Amendment is getting trampled. Any Amendment.

Heads they win, tails you lose

The reality is that America is a theme park of pure awesome compared to the rest of the world. There are lots of really bad people out there that hate it and hate us for it. The NSA wants to keep that out. To do it they need us to ignore their feeding the Fourth Amendment into the shredder. Perhaps you can see how the PRISM controversy isn’t easy for me to take sides on. Its not so simple.

disclaimer: this article was written in the wee hours of the morning while under the influence of jet lag.

At this particular tradeshow, in Taiwan, I found two extremes of tradeshow marketing. I’ll call them the yin and yang of tradeshow marketing.

The Yin

First, spare me the misogynist rant. It is common knowledge that sex and scandal sells. What could be a better blend of those two concepts than a scantily clad woman promoting tech gear to a predominantly male attendee crowd in a country that really doesn’t care about pushing boundaries? In the local culture they are practically celebrities. They draw crowds of local guys that have little to do with the show. They have cameras that look like bazookas and they crowd around these girls to take tons of photos. Bottom line, it works. I stopped at their booth. I really didn’t have a choice since the crowd of paparazzi made it impossible to pass by. We have “booth babes” here in the States but it tends to be done more tastefully. We add some subtlety. In Asia, all bets are off as is quite a bit of clothing. In the end, this is the yin, it works, like it or not.

The Yang

Yes, a clown. The yang. Let me start by saying this was a rather guttural encounter for me. I’ll be honest. I wanted to shoot this clown. I mean I actually considered what kind of gun to use. I am not clown phobic by any means. At the same time I would consider running over clowns with a dump truck to be a decent plot line for a summer comedy. This is the yang of marketing because driving potential customers away is a big time fail. Worse yet, the marketing genius that orchestrated this travesty gave the clown a rather loud squeaky toy to draw attention. This is good only in the event there is a blind sniper in the room.

I’d prefer PowerPoint over the clown, that is saying a lot.

In case you are wondering, the clown is alive. I didn’t have the time to construct the giant steampunk gears, chutes and marbles mousetrap of death that would have been befitting.

legal disclaimer: I do not engage in or endorse physical violence or gun violence in any way. This post was tagged as #comedy and should be viewed as such. This disclaimer exists for those select people that are so freaking uptight that they take everything literally and lack the brain power to fuel a healthy sense of humor.

The Holiday Flower Market is only open on weekends. Furthermore it is not easy to find. It is located beneath an elevated freeway in the Daan section of Taipei. The underpass between cross streets has been semi-permanently walled off to form an open space for the market. Professional and amateur farmers, beekeepers, tea growers and artisans hock their wares.

This particular morning I bought a cup of iced oolong tea, walked the market and took pictures.